


can't believe he found me

by secretlyhuman



Series: spend the days dreamin' [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Presents, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, M/M, POV Taako (The Adventure Zone), Pancakes, Post-Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3, bad baking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:56:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28938876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretlyhuman/pseuds/secretlyhuman
Summary: “Krav.” He’s trying not to giggle at the sensible look on Kravitz’s face as he rinses the glasses. “Krav, Lup and I are gonna be grown ups. Like proper elf grown ups.”A flash of confusion passes across his boyfriend's face, it probably doesn’t work the same way in Faerun as it did in their old home. So he explains it in semi-coherent detail. Elf years are longer, doesn't everyone know that. He and Lup are older than the humans but younger than them at the same time, these things aren’t linear.Kravitz just looks at him with those dark eyes of his and nods. No one but he and Lup know how old they actually are, some secrets are fun to keep. But now, if they were in their homeworld, like nothing had ever happened they’d be adults and full members of elf society. Or maybe they wouldn't, he adds. Maybe they would have stayed in the wilds with the fae and all the adventures that could have laid in wait there.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup, Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), Lup & Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Series: spend the days dreamin' [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2122437
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	can't believe he found me

**Author's Note:**

> i just very much love the idea of Taako and Lup happy and never alone again! title of this and the rest of the series from pierre by ryn weaver the lyrics of which do not at all match the story
> 
> thanks for reading, kudos and comments make my day :)

It’s strange the way ages work between them. In actual years Magnus is the youngest, Merle is the oldest. But proportionally they all know that’s wrong. The twins had stepped on the Star Blaster basically straight out of high school. They were little more than children when they flew off their homeworld, no matter how much they looked or sounded like adults. 

They were young and bold and they were going to change the world, and couldn't know what was in store for them. 

So when Taako looks at his calendar and sees that his and Lup’s birthday is quickly approaching he laughs so hard his ribs ache. Birthdays don’t really matter when you’re as old as they are but their bodies are still young, not so much as when they landed but elves do live a long time. 

Of course he tells Lup first, she has a body again and that body will age even as she doesn’t. They have spent a lifetime growing up and they are there now and they have a home. They could not have pictured this as children running loose across the wilds of their homeland. 

She opens a bottle of champagne he had been saving for something and he’d be mad but it feels right. They should celebrate. They survived. And that thought makes him laugh again. His life is so much more full of laughter than he thought it ever could be.

When they stop laughing and the champagne runs dry, he hands Lup a lipstick and watches as she leaves a sticky pink kiss right on the date. For a second he feels the note she left crumpling in his hands but then he’s right back in his kitchen and his chest is so full of love he barely needs to breathe. 

Of course Kravitz finds out next. He’s the one that has to haul their drunk asses out of the kitchen so it only seems fair to tell him.

“Krav.” He’s trying not to giggle at the sensible look on Kravitz’s face as he rinses the glasses. “Krav, Lup and I are gonna be grown ups. Like proper elf grown ups.” 

A flash of confusion passes across his boyfriend's face, it probably doesn’t work the same way in Faerun as it did in their old home. So he explains it in semi-coherent detail. Elf years are longer, doesn't everyone know that. He and Lup are older than the humans but younger than them at the same time, these things aren’t linear. 

Kravitz just looks at him with those dark eyes of his and nods. No one but he and Lup know how old they actually are, some secrets are fun to keep. But now, if they were in their homeworld, like nothing had ever happened they’d be adults and full members of elf society. Or maybe they wouldn't, he adds. Maybe they would have stayed in the wilds with the fae and all the adventures that could have laid in wait there. 

(He knows his home doesn’t exist anymore. They had left the light there when they were too young to know better. It’s nice to pretend even for a moment.)

It must be Kravitz that tells the rest of the crew, Lup never had before so he doesn’t see why she would now. Birthdays didn’t really matter in the cycles but they had done them occasionally. Merle always wanted flowers, Magnus wanted cake, Lucretia said she didn’t want anything but every year they got her a new journal and she cried just a little. Sometimes he and Lup would sneak off to celebrate their own, the way they had when they were kids. In a ship that small it was something just for them. 

So it must have been Kravitz who let the rest of the team know of the champagne sticky kiss on the calendar because the next afternoon he wakes up and a time and place is written on it in Lucretia’s neat cursive. Of course it would be her. He would almost feel bad for his anger but she spent a year alone then forced twelve on them. He might not forgive her but she is his family and her handwriting hasn’t changed since they took off that first time. It sits heavy and familiar around his chest as he makes his first coffee of the day. 

There’s a note from Kravitz by the coffee pot and he doesn’t hurt the way he did after the first time.

(The first one had said I love you and was intended to be a nice gesture but bile still rose in his throat if he thought of the panic of it.) 

This one said something about leaving for party planning reasons and he might be back a little late and the clarity was nice. His boyfriend was planning him a party, he was going to be a real freaking adult. The thought was strange in his mind. He’d been an adult for one hundred years but really he was only just removed from the age he’d been as they left. Ten years was no time at all to Merle, far more to Magnus and he fell somewhere in between them. This was a sort of significant thing. 

…

He wakes up on the morning of his birthday to an empty bed, a small wooden duck left on his pillow. On closer inspection it’s perfectly carved and painted with Kravitz’s skull face in goofy duck form. He would rather his boyfriend was there but the duck is a close second and once he’s dressed he slips it into a pocket, careful to avoid one of the few with pudding. 

By that point noise and the smell of pancakes is starting to make its way through from his kitchen. He makes his way down the hall quietly to give himself time to assess whether he should just go back to sleep. He is greeted with the sight of Barry and Krav, frazzled looking and apron clad, standing in his kitchen glaring at various bowls and pans alongside Lup, still in pajamas laughing in a way that suggests this has been going on for a while. 

Two of the smartest men he knew and apparently they couldn’t figure out a recipe. He joins them at the table, hand slipping to Lup’s and squeezing. This was the first birthday of theirs celebrated by Not Them in over a hundred years and it felt strange but also right. 

The pancakes took another half hour which was already longer than it would have taken the twins. By the end of the process they were both vibrating in their chairs with the effort of not stepping up to help. Each of them ended up with pancakes and syrup and some small red berries that were unlike anything outside of Faerun. The four of them took first bites in almost perfect unison. 

“These pancakes taste like butt!” The twins looked at each other as they spoke in time before exploding with laughter. They fell into each other with it, not helped by the immediate looks of relief on the faces of their boys. They were truly barely pancakes. 

It was an oddly perfect start to the strangeness of the day, especially when Lup and Taako made up an actually edible breakfast so that they wouldn’t all be running on empty stomachs. 

There’s a moment where he starts to get overwhelmed from it all, all the changes and heart ache that led to this perfect moment in his kitchen. But with one hand he reaches to Kravitz and out to Lup with the other and he can feel Magnus’ duck heavy in his pocket and the panic sinks away replaced with the type of joy that makes all of it worth it. 

From there they’re led up a wooded clearing, sun filtering through the trees in perfect warm shadows. Everyone is waiting for them and they cheer as they arrive. Taako can feel his blush spreading down from the tips of his ears, heating up his face. This must be what family feels like. He clings to Lup and they look at each other, tears welling up in their eyes much to the concern of everyone else. But they are so happy and their whole lives are spreading out in front of them. A new map of the future they never thought they could have, one that’s filled with people who care for them.

That day there is music and love and food not quite as good as he and Lup could have made it, but better for the love that went into it. And they all dance among the trees and get a little more wine drunk than they should in the presence of the boy detective and Merle’s kids. 

Magnus hands him another duck, this one with his ears and hat. He can’t remember the last time they hugged so he does that and he feels a little guilty for the year of the Bureau where he was never quite there for them in the way that Magnus at least would have been for him. The guilt cannot last long though, because Magnus is one of two people in the world who knows what it was like. 

As Magnus walks away he sees Lucretia at the edge of the clearing, standing on the edge of where the shadows start to deepen as she has all day. 

“I don’t forgive you.” A look of hurt flashes up on her face and he’s sure she’s going to say something but he continues before she has the chance. “I don’t forgive you but I understand why you did it. You’re still my family.” 

She doesn’t reply to that and they stand in a peaceful quiet for a minute or so, and for the first time he thinks one day he might forgive her. Because what she did was terrible but it led him here, to an end to all the running and so much more family than he thought he could have. 

Before she walks away she pulls something from her satchel and passes it to him. It's a small piece of paper, he unfolds it to reveal one of Lucretia’s sketches. An old one by the way the ink has faded. It‘s the kitchen of the Star Blaster and all of them are there, though Lucretia only by the drawn in edge of her journal. They’re all laughing at some long forgotten joke. Him and Lup cooking. Magnus with his head thrown back. Barry’s looking at Lup in the way they now all understand and Cap and Merle are sat up on a counter with Merle trying to steal something sweet.

They did good. 

That night Kravitz leads him back to the room they share and hands him one more gift. A small box wrapped in perfect black tissue. He tears the tissue off in his eagerness and opens the tiny box to find a simple silver ring. Instantly the tears are back in his eyes as he looks to Kravitz, looking back up at him from one knee. 

“Taako I loved you even before a fish in the sky told me of the man you were before Faerun. And with everyday I love you more-” His fiance doesn’t get to finish what he is saying before Taako is pulling him to his feet repeating the word yes and kissing him in some frantic combination. 

They did so good and now they get they’re happy ending and he is sure he will never be lonely again. 


End file.
